MY SHADOW

There is a legend that proclaims we are most ourselves in that ethereal place between darkness and light, when our sleepy minds have detached from the concerns of this world and are lingering still on the conversations with heaven whispered through the night.

“I have a little shadow that goes in and out of me.”

As a little girl I would read the works of the author of this line, Robert Louis Stevenson, over and over until the words he wrote became a part of who I am, until I could recite with ease every word, until the stories he imagined became part my reality.

Today, I am sitting in a chair, writing my own words as I allow a liquid substance to pour through my veins despite my life-long declaration that I would never, ever allow this to be done. I am in the process of an intimate conversation with myself, one born out of a necessity to heal, a healing that can only come from reconciling with myself. 

Shadows. It is not only what is illuminated that changes us but the things we keep most hidden from view. 

There are parts of us we don’t want to look at and sometimes even refuse to see. They are parts of us all the same. Sometimes the very things we hide away are the counterbalance to the best aspects of who we really are. 

Reconciled, the hidden or “shadow” self and the part of us we allow others to see are unstoppable. 

Did you know that the same author who is known the world over for his children’s poem, My Shadow, also created Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Hardly a story for the innocent and yet in so many ways is the adult version of the poem I quoted above. While this tale emphasizes the presence of good and evil, the essential meaning puts who we all are, as whole persons, under glass and forces us to look at ourselves, the good and what we deem to be “bad,” from every side.

Here’s something to consider—
As the world dedicates this season to the obsession of the New, I contend that the greatest gain is in not the new thing at all but the willingness to explore and develop every aspect of who we already are.

What are we afraid of…
That we will discover something in us that needs forgiving or that we are unforgivable?
That we will uncover a long-held belief that no longer fits who we have become?
That the very thing that we suppress and refuse to see might be the most extraordinary part of who we are and are meant to be? 

If we are determined enough to look away, we must also believe we are strong enough to face any and everything about ourselves, reconciling, even making friends with our Shadows in order that all of who we are can step into the Light.  

This “New” illumination is not some externalized world-view version of the here and now but the wellspring, the outpouring of our intrinsic gifting and purpose nurtured to its fullest potential for such a time as now.

Ours is the thrilling task of looking at what is, as if through a prism, examining all sides. 
The New that we hunger for is already within us. The vastness of the heavens. The stories of a hundred lifetimes. Generations of memories inhabiting our very cells. Even, if we ask, the very spirit of the living God.

Shadows to light—
The power is not in what we are able to control but in what we are willing to set free. 

My Shadow
BY ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

Things to ponder

~What is in you that you carry, that is of you and the best of you that cannot be ignored or duplicated, the thing that never leaves and never runs out?

~What have you known about yourself since the beginning that was embedded there?
Can you remember a time as a child when you had some epiphany or revelation that there was something about you that seemed “special” or rare?

~What are you doing to cultivate that thing? 
What are you doing to manifest it in the world?